Chapter Four
Now
I push down on my suitcase, trying to zip it closed. I remember the last time I used it how annoying it was and I make a mental note to throw it away after this journey. I have made this same mental note several times in the past but as soon as I return home I put it away and forget about it.
I can’t stop thinking about the missing girl. I need to be there. I fear if I don’t go then she will never be found, like the girl who went missing when I was younger.
I hear Chris in the next room putting Lloyd to bed. I know I should do it as I am the one who is leaving but I just want to get on the road. I think this time apart will be good for us – for me, anyway. I need to be a better wife, a better mother. Maybe going back there will make me realise how far I have come. I can barely remember the person I used to be. It’s like I have been running for so long and trying to be different from my own mother that I have completely lost myself. It’s hard to be a good example when you barely feel like a person at all.
‘I don’t understand why you have to leave right now. At least wait ’til morning. We can have a nice breakfast. You can’t check in to your hotel until the afternoon anyway,’ Chris says.
‘I booked the hotel from today so I can check in as soon as I get there.’
‘I see. You just can’t wait to get out of here, can you?’
‘Don’t be like that. I wish I could explain it to you, but I can’t.’
‘This again? You think you’re the only person who had a rotten childhood, but you aren’t.’
‘I’m not saying that, I never said that.’
‘Then tell me what the big deal is. Why can’t you just wait until Friday when I can come, too?’
‘I will tell you, just not now. Please just let me do this on my own.’
‘I don’t know why I even try sometimes. You are so immovable. You had better do some serious thinking while you’re gone. If this isn’t what you want, then cut us loose. I can’t do this anymore.’
I try not to think about what it is he is actually saying. I know he’s right. I know I can’t be like this and expect everyone else to just be OK with it, for everyone to just carry on around me as if it isn’t obvious I’m on the brink of falling apart. If he knew the truth about me, he might understand why I need to go back. I might be the best chance that girl has.
I go to Chris, his eyes glistening with emotion. I know I’m hurting him but I can’t think about that right now, not with what’s at stake. I kiss him and I can feel him exhale with relief, as if all he wanted was for me to tell him I still love him. Of course I do, that has never been in question. Not for me anyway.
‘Come with the kids on Friday, if I’m not back already. Please.’
‘Are you sure?’
‘Of course. I love you, I hope you know that.’
‘Sometimes I wonder.’
I pull away, not willing to play the guilt game anymore. I just need to get on the road. The sooner I leave the sooner I can get the answers I’m looking for. I feel the invisible thread as I am pulled back. My life so far has been in two parts, before and after, then and now. I think back to that summer. It feels like a lifetime ago, another world entirely. I put my case in the boot of the car. I never do this, I never drive far on my own, I never stay away from home without Chris or the kids. This will be the first time I have spent the night away from Lloyd. He’s only seven, I hope he understands, I hope Chris does too, eventually. I have no choice. The life of that missing girl may depend on it.
Chapter Five
As I leave the safety of our little town in The Lake District, close to the border with Scotland, and head south, I feel a familiar dread wash over me. My knuckles whiten as I grip the steering wheel, almost clinging on for my life. I want to turn back, to pretend I didn’t hear the news report, to carry on living inside my lies. I don’t work, not really. I was young when Daisy was born and Chris thought it was better if I stayed home and looked after her. I’ve been with Chris my entire adult life; I knew from the moment we met that I would be safe with him. I feel bad again for leaving him with the children, especially when he is at such a crucial point in building his start-up business. Chris is in the process of trying to secure funding to convert a load of freight containers into affordable carbon-neutral houses, at first in the Lakes and then, if the model works, to a wider market.
Leaving late has its advantages and the roads are mostly clear. There is a little rain but it’s not enough to break the humidity and not enough to make me pull over. I hate driving in the rain but it feels appropriate somehow. My thoughts focus on what awaits me in Devon. I realise then that I didn’t eat lunch or dinner today, too consumed with organising the family so I could get away and deal with this.
I pull over at a service station – it’s properly dark now – as I am so hungry I can barely concentrate. I grab a sandwich and take it to the seating area. The rain gets heavier outside and I pull my coat around me. It’s not cold but I feel strange being here by myself. A man sits at my table and smiles at me. There are plenty of empty seats so I don’t understand why he’s chosen that seat, or why he’s looking at me.
‘Can I help you?’
‘Thought you might be lonely sitting here.’
‘Well I’m not.’
I had forgotten about this, not going out much, not being part of the world but staying in my safe little village with my family and all the familiar faces of neighbours and acquaintances. I forgot that sometimes people – strangers – just come and speak to you. I feel the panic rising in me. I want him to go away but I don’t want to upset him as I don’t know what he might do. Of course he is probably just lonely, but that doesn’t give him the right to bother me. He opens his mouth but I stand and move to another table. I can hear Chris in my ear telling me not to be rude, not to be unfriendly. I finish my sandwich quickly and go and buy some cola to drink on the ride, full sugar to keep me awake.
As I make my way to the car, I look behind me to see the man from the café following me. I put my hand in my bag to find the keys, putting them between my fingers when I do. The service station is strangely quiet and I feel unsafe. The car is close now but somehow I feel like I’m getting further away. Behind me I hear the beep of a car alarm being turned off and the sound of a door opening. As I reach my own car I turn and see the man who was following me pulling out of a spot and driving towards the exit. I get in and lock the doors, feeling stupid. I wish I was at home with Chris and the kids, I wish I didn’t have to do this alone. I pull myself together and start the car before pulling back out onto the motorway. I’m on a collision course with the ghosts of my past and there is nothing I can do to stop it. This road somehow feels like the purgatory between my real life now – the one where I am safe and loved – and the mess I left behind.
I change the radio station regularly as I drive, with little tolerance for anything for a prolonged period of time. I finally reach a local Devonshire radio station and my blood runs cold – I’m getting closer. My head begins to throb. I open the glove box and root around for pills of some kind. I usually keep a packet or two in there. I find a pack with just two left and I knock them back with my Coke, even though I know they won’t take the thrumming in my temples away. Nothing will until I am out of this place, until I am on my way home. Inside I already feel like I am never going to get home, that I got lucky the last time I left this place, reluctantly released from its grip into the world with the proviso that I never return. I’m breaking a pact I made with myself sixteen years ago when I first got on that bus out of town. I promised I would never go back. I told the universe that if it just let me get away then I would be a good person, if that was even possible for someone like me.
The road signs become increasingly familiar as I approach my destination. I see houses and streets from my childhood. It’s like walking through that wardrobe and into Narnia – another world entirely, one I am not supposed to be in, one that’s not meant for me. It’s too late now. There is no turning back.
Chapter Six
Time has stopped here. I am glad that the world is sleeping when I finally drive through the winding valley and the crossroads that lead into the actual town. I have walked these pavements until my feet were sore in the past. I’m hit with a wave of nostalgia I wasn’t expecting. I left abruptly and have never made my peace with it, my mind writing the town and its inhabitants off the second I was a few miles away, desperate to forget all of the things that happened, good or bad. The memories come flooding in, something I was afraid of. I drive past a bus stop that I remember sitting in with school friends and a bottle of cider, a smile creeping across my face as I remember a part of my life that I have kept buried for the longest time. I see the turning for a road where we used to live and feel every muscle in my body tense, thankful that I don’t need to drive past the house to get to where I need to go.
Further into the town is the old cinema, just past my family’s dentist. I see the ghost of myself on every corner. I had forgotten how much of me was shaped in this town. The cinema looks the same, as do the shops surrounding it. How can so much time have passed outside this town and yet nothing has changed on the inside? To me the town is alive, a monster in my mind, dark and insidious, creeping and malevolent. I feel its fingers around me, gently pulling me in, leading me towards a place I am not sure I want to go. I have always thought that this town isn’t like anywhere else, that once it gets a hold of you, you can’t escape, almost as if some ancient pagan magic is at work. I know it makes no sense, but I think of it almost as if it were a person who had wronged me, someone I can never forgive, someone I am afraid to let into my heart again. So instead I just feel anger towards it. As if these buildings and streets are all complicit somehow.
I can feel the sea before I see it. Something always feels different about coastal towns, as if they are on the edge of the world somehow. There is no way to get lost as long as you can find the sea. I am glad I drove here at night. I didn’t tell Chris it was because I didn’t want to have to look at the people who live here as I drove past them, wondering if I knew them, wondering if they knew me. I just want to get inside the hotel and close the door, giving myself a few hours before I have to venture out again. Taking off was unusually selfish of me, but from the moment I saw that news report I knew there was nothing else I could do. I have to find out what happened. The locals will know things that aren’t in the news. I’ll find out who the missing girl is, why she was here and what happened to her. For some reason I think I’m the only one who can.
I pull into the hotel car park, the huge red brick building a monument to a different time. I could have chosen a less expensive hotel, but this is the one we used to look at and wonder what was inside, it always seemed so posh and decadent. Standing in front of it now, it seems much smaller than I remember, much less imposing. It’s still grand but it’s dated, and not in a good way. I feel like an imposter just stepping through the doors, as if I’m not actually allowed to be in this building, as if it knows who I am.
I approach the desk, studying the face of the woman behind the counter. It’s a small town and I half expect her to recognise me even though I don’t recognise her. That is, until she opens her mouth to speak.
‘Hello, Miss, how can I help you?’ she says. Her accent is French or Belgian, or something like that. I feel instant relief that she isn’t local.
‘I called ahead to say I would be arriving tonight. I’m a little later than I expected.’
‘Mrs Felicity Musgrave?’
‘Yes.’
She has the paperwork ready. I sign the card and she shares the Wi-Fi password. She explains that I am too late to order breakfast to my room in the morning, but I can eat in the dining room with the other guests, or I can order room service from a limited menu at any point during my stay. I am so tired I can barely decipher what she is saying and the speed at which she speaks doesn’t make things any easier. But I smile and nod at the correct intervals and she finally hands me the key. She gestures to a porter to come and take my bag. I follow him dutifully, embarrassed now that I booked this place, embarrassed that I am making someone carry my bag. I was proving a point to myself and no one else, that I’m a better person now than I was when I left. All the money in the world can’t wash away the things I did though.
My room overlooks the beach. I can see what they mean when they say it’s darkest just before dawn. The sea is a sheet of black. The room itself was probably considered very opulent a few years ago, but now it gives off the impression that lots of hotel rooms do; that lots of people have slept there. I know that within a few hours, though, this will be the only place in the whole town where I feel even remotely comfortable.
I pull out my phone to text Chris. It’s unusual for me to open my phone and not find a supportive message from him there, although in recent months I have noticed a change in the way he is with me. He’s been less tolerant of my idiosyncrasies lately and it’s as if I want to push him even further, to see how far I can before he stops loving me. I miss him. I can tell he is unhappy because I have no notifications at all. I just message the word ‘here’ along with a kiss and turn my phone off. For now I want to sleep.
I brush my teeth, desperate to get rid of the sugary coating from the Coke I had in the car. I look at my reflection for what feels like the first time in days and wipe the heavy black liner from my top lid and what remains of my red lipstick. It’s one of those lipsticks that lasts for hours. I’m not even sure why I put it on for the journey. Habit, I suppose. I don’t go anywhere without my war paint on. I pull my hair into a ponytail on top of my head and wash my face, then I moisturise. My little routines are often what get me through when my anxiety starts to creep to the surface – which is why social situations are so hard; I don’t have a routine for those.
The bed is huge, a super king I suspect, and just magnifies my loneliness as I climb in, sticking to the left hand side because that’s where I always sleep. I try to shuffle to the middle but it just feels wrong somehow. I put my phone on the bedside table even though it’s off and I lie down and count backwards from a hundred in my head. It’s a method I contrived to stop myself from thinking too much before I fall asleep, otherwise the night terrors come and those are something you never quite get accustomed to. In the back of my mind I can see faces from my past that I have tried to forget so I concentrate on the numbers.
Seventy-eight. Seventy-seven. Seventy-six. Seventy-five. I see hands claw at me for help but I pull away. Seventy-four. Seventy-three. Seventy-two. I watch helplessly as the sea swallows them. Seventy-one. Seventy. Sixty-nine. Sixty-eight. I stand for a moment at the cliff’s edge and watch for them to reappear, but it never happens. I close my eyes tighter and focus harder on the numbers. Sixty-seven. Sixty-six. Sixty-five. Stop thinking. Please stop thinking …
Chapter Seven
Then
It turned out that Jasmine’s parents knew Tim from when Lisa worked in the shelter last year. Tim was homeless and staying with the Burgesses for a while until he got back on his feet. He was going to work on the Burgess house in return for a reduced rent. Until then, Tim had painted elderly people’s homes in exchange for a hot meal. Since he’d started doing that, lots of people had paid him to do odd jobs for cash and he’d largely managed to turn his life around, though he’d been living out of his car until now.
Jasmine helped her father in the garage. They had both woken up at the crack of dawn, the sun already shining. They were putting all the boxes that didn’t need to be unpacked just yet in there. Considering they had moved from a smaller house it was amazing how much stuff they had brought with them.
‘Can Flick come over when you go away next weekend?’
‘She’s always welcome here, I hope she knows that.’
‘I suppose Tim will be around as well?’ she said, almost spitting his name.
‘I don’t know what you’ve got against him. Has he said anything to upset you?’
‘No, he hasn’t said anything. It’s not that. Don’t you think he’s weird?’
‘People say I’m weird, Jasmine, doesn’t make me a bad guy. No one besides you has a bad word to say about him. He’s done a lot of good things for people for no payment. He’s ex-military so I know we can trust him. This is no different to us helping the people when we go abroad. Charity begins at home, Jasmine.’
Jasmine handed her father another box to put on the shelf. She knew when her parents got it into their minds to help someone there was no deterring them. She just resented not being consulted on something that would impact her life just as much as theirs.
‘Why isn’t he doing this then if he’s so brilliant? I thought he was staying to help around the house.’
‘He’s not going to be our personal slave, Jasmine. You can’t spare twenty minutes away from the television to stack a couple of boxes?’
‘He’s just always there, you know? He’s not very approachable either.’
‘Sometimes when people are afraid or shy, they can appear a bit awkward. He’s been through a lot and it’s our duty to help him. You’re just projecting when you say things like that. I think you’re feeling guilty for being unfriendly. You’re being a bit selfish and unreasonable and I’m not sure I like this side of you. We didn’t bring you up like that. I’d suggest you make more of an effort because he’s staying and you need to get used to it.’
‘Fine.’
She knew better than to push the point with her father. He was a small man but he could be fierce when he wanted to.
‘Pass me the fishing rods and you can go back to whatever you were doing before I disturbed you. I’ve got to get off to work anyway.’
Jasmine found it hard to believe that the person her father was talking about was the man living in their guest house. There was no warmth about him at all. But her parents weren’t the kind of people who took risks, so they must have been pretty sure about Tim to let him live with them.
Jasmine’s room caught the sun for most of the day, and even with the curtains drawn the heat seeped in. She was tired that morning because she’d stayed up late reading a true crime book about women who killed. She found things like that fascinating, but her parents hated that she was into the macabre so she tried to read when they weren’t around. She wanted to read another chapter but it was just too warm in there and there probably wasn’t enough time before she went to school anyway.
Jasmine had just settled in the kitchen with a bowl of muesli and her summer art project – meant to build her portfolio for college – when Tim knocked on one of the French doors. She felt she had no choice but to nod that it was OK for him to come in, remembering that her father had told her to be nice to him. So far, Jasmine had no reason to question her father’s judgement of character and if he trusted Tim then she had to as well.
‘Your dad told me he wanted me to work on the lounge today. Do you mind if I get started now?’
‘Why would I mind?’ Jasmine asked, a little more aggressive than necessary.
‘I just don’t want to disturb anyone. Is your dad here?’
‘No, he left for work already. Mum’s still in bed,’ she replied, wondering if she shouldn’t have let him in after all.
Tim looked up as though he could see through the floor into her parents’ room. When there was no movement from upstairs, he relaxed a little, the deep furrow in his brow disappearing as he pulled a dining chair out and sat opposite Jasmine, almost reclining, his backside on the edge of the seat and one leg stretched out in front of him.
‘What you drawing?’
‘If you can’t tell then I’m doing it wrong,’ Jasmine said flippantly. She saw him smile and it was like looking at a different man; softer somehow, kinder.
He placed his palms on the table then stood and leaned over, tilting his head to look at the drawing. She couldn’t take his eyes off his forearms; they were strong and tan and still sported those tiny white flecks. From this distance she could hear him breathing.
‘Is it the fruit bowl?’ he asked, still leaning over, his face just inches from Jasmine’s. She made the mistake of looking up and their eyes locked. For the first time she noticed his eyes properly; they were grey with a deep blue ring around the outside. Her pulse quickened, but Tim broke eye contact first and slumped back in the seat, taking the apple from the top of the bowl, the one she was sketching. She was drawn to his mouth as he bit into the apple, his lips moistening with the juice. She snapped her eyes away and stood up. Jasmine left her soggy muesli on the table, grabbed her art homework and stuffed it into her bag, suddenly wanting to get out of the house. When she looked back he was smiling, a different kind of smile this time. He pulled her bowl of muesli over and started to eat it.
Chapter Eight
At dinner that night, Jasmine’s parents talked about the group they usually went away with for the summer holidays. Guyana had been picked as their destination this year. Jasmine had never been there before. It was never much of a holiday for her family, if she was honest, as they went to do charitable work in underprivileged communities. Both of her parents saved up their annual leave and they usually stayed for several weeks and helped with the completion of a charity project – they’d been every year since before Jasmine was born. This year they couldn’t go, though, because her father had had hip replacement surgery earlier that summer and the doctor had advised against a long-haul flight. Jasmine knew he was devastated to cause them to miss their trip. He had always been so active and full of energy that she felt sorry for him. He had spent several months in pain before finally conceding to going in for the operation and his posture hadn’t seemed to have recovered. It hadn’t helped that he had a fear of hospitals that they didn’t really talk about, something from his childhood that had left an emotional scar. This was the first time she had really considered his age; seen the way his stature had changed in just the last year. He wasn’t a tall man to begin with and he had lost a little weight so it seemed he’d almost shrunk somehow.
‘How’s your drama club going? What’s the big play that you’re doing this year?’ Frank said, asking the obligatory parental questions about her interests.
‘Drama is going well. I might even get a part in the college production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream this year, what with us not going away. Lots of rehearsals going on over the summer.’
‘Oh, that’s exciting,’ her mother said in a way that made Jasmine think she wasn’t particularly excited at all. They loved travelling all over the globe and this would be the first summer that Jasmine could remember staying at home. She could tell both her parents were deeply disappointed about this.
‘Because I’m here for the rehearsals over the summer, Miss Cotterel said I should audition for the role of Titania, the fairy queen. I said I would happily help with the set design as well. The production isn’t until Christmas but because I already have a place on the drama A Level I can attend the auditions in August,’ Jasmine said, rubbing it in a little. Normally Jasmine’s interests came last. Not this time though; this time she could do all the summery things that had been denied to her in previous years. She knew her friend Felicity was jealous of all the places she had been and all the experiences she had had, yet she had prayed something would happen to stop them from travelling. She felt responsible for her father getting sick, as if his illness was somehow a manifestation of her resentful thoughts.
